I just made it in the final list of graduating nursing students this year. How fast time flew! It was not too long ago when I was frantically trying to persuade my Mom to allow me time off from school. I wanted to take up ballet lessons instead of enrolling in college, right after high school. I just thought, I needed more time to sort out my life and what I really wanted to be in the future. Nursing didn’t appeal to me, but since we have a surgeon in the family, my Dad, my Mom’s choice triumphed over my dancing shoes.
I breezed through my first two years in Nursing and it was on my Third year when the physical demands of the course jolted me back to my senses. Play is no longer a right, it has become privilege. I began to understand why Nursing is regarded a “noble” profession: it is one vocation you simply cannot stop giving more of yourself, until there’s nothing left but fatigue and a strong headache.
But it was on my third year when I learned to appreciate my course. I was assigned to Sarasota Memorial Hospital. To Room 217. To Glenn.
I checked Glenn’s records at the nurses’ station and I learned he is suffering from cystic fibrosis. I know the fast facts about this disease like the back of my hand - a requirement for all health-care providers like me. But I felt distant, like the rest of my peers, until the disease took on a human face, all its own.
Heredity is the main factor leading to Cystic Fibrosis. The disease is common among Caucasians with one gene-carrier, for every 25 people. Ashkenazi Jews are also affected by Cystic Fibrosis, which unfortunately, is incurable.
CF affects the whole body characterized by constant infections of the respiratory system, infections of the sinuses, intermittent diarrhea, pancreatic disorder and infertility in most cases. Breathing among CF sufferers is difficult. As years progress, so does the disease, causing disability to vital bodily functions, until early death beckons as an escape.
Antibiotics and other medications may help suppress the gravity of the lung infection, but they do not offer permanent relief. Infections can easily recur because of the thick mucus buildup in the lungs which become a perfect breeding ground for bacteria that causes pneumonia or bronchitis. Those afflicted can die young, often from respiratory failure, when complications are not averted. Lung transplant, as Cystic Fibrosis worsens, is often necessary to lengthen life.
The look on Glenn’s face when I entered the room was one of resistance, not of surprise. Perhaps, he did not want to let anyone see him in his condition, all propped up on pillows to make breathing a little bit easier, rather than lying straight on his back. His pallor did not succeed in hiding a handsome face etched with suffering. He managed a forced smile after noticing me transfixed in my place near the entrance, so moved by what I saw, I could not afford to speak.
Glenn surprised me by the degree of his intensity towards his research about his disease. He discovered that CF is caused by a mutation of the gene that is responsible for creating human sweat, mucus and digestive juices, known simply as CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator). Cystic Fibrosis develops when neither of the two CFTR genes in a person’s body functions normally. All it takes is but one gene, operating normally, to prevent Cystic Fibrosis.
“Cystic Fibrosis” got its name from exactly what the disease does: it produces cyst in the pancreas, when it was discovered first in the 1930’s, and it creates scarring (fibrosis).
Glenn, at the onset of the disease, experienced the following symptoms: coughing, excessive production of phlegm, difficulty in breathing, and difficulty in his movements. CF results in disability among those afflicted.
Symptoms actually vary with age. Babies diagnosed to have cystic fibrosis usually have slow growth, and excrete thick fecal matter which is caused by blockage in the baby’s intestines. Maturing into early adulthood, the child may suffer from recurring lung infections, with continued poor growth.
Worse symptoms may include coughing up not just phlegm, but also blood; elevated blood pressure, infection of lung airways that may lead to pneumonia which could be fatal. Tuberculosis can develop; heart failure due to CF is also a common immediate cause of death, aside from respiratory arrest.
More advanced ravage of the disease will center on the internal organs – the pancreas, liver and bile more likely its targets. Impairment of these organs deny the body the ability to absorb nutrients from the food it consumes.
And just like other diseases, which science has not found a cure yet, I could only look at Glenn everyday, doing my best to make him comfortable. Through this, I learned to appreciate and love my profession – for it provided me a way to reach out to people like Glenn who, in his suffering, I learned to appreciate the kind of life I had been given.
There is no known cure for Cystic Fibrosis yet, but as Glenn celebrated his 24th birthday yesterday, and showed the willpower to blow all 24 candles I put on the cake I baked, specially for him, I just hope that the same willpower will sustain him longer; hoping that one day soon, science discovers a remedy for Cystic Fibrosis and end a portion of suffering in the world today.
